


Dream Baby Dream

by lifeisverylong



Series: FC Bruce Springsteen [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Character Study, FC Barcelona, Gen, I have no idea what I'm doing, Puyol wasn't supposed to be important here but he snuck in anyway, Song fic, also featuring Eric Bartra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisverylong/pseuds/lifeisverylong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It’s what people at La Masia kept telling them – dream big. Play and train and learn because you love it in the here and now, but remember – kids come to La Masia to make their dreams come true. If you’re not reaching for something, you’re in the wrong place. At eleven, Marc was too young to take anyone seriously, but he would look at Eric and Eric would look back at him and they’d grin, because they were in football mecca and they had no intention of leaving.</i>
</p><p>(Title and quoted text from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZRSQfFo8Y">the Bruce Springsteen song</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Baby Dream

_Come on and open up your heart  
Come on and open up your heart  
Come on dream on, dream baby dream_

Marc can’t remember when he first began to love FC Barcelona. He can’t remember when he began to love football, either, but he thinks that he had blaugrana in his heart before he realized that he could play the game that the giants on TV played, before he realized how much he loved the ball and how much the ball loved him back. He learned to love football bit by bit, and loved it all the more when Espanyol invited him to train in their youth system. 

But Barcelona snuck into his heart before he realized it was there, and made itself quite at home.

_Dream baby dream  
Dream baby dream  
Come on and dream baby dream_

It’s what people at La Masia kept telling them – dream big. Play and train and learn because you love it in the here and now, but remember – kids come to La Masia to make their dreams come true. If you’re not reaching for something, you’re in the wrong place. At eleven, Marc was too young to take anyone seriously, but he would look at Eric and Eric would look back at him and they’d grin, because they were in football mecca and they had no intention of leaving.

_Now I just wanna see you smile  
Yeah I just wanna see you smile  
Come on dream on, dream baby dream_

“It’s time for me to leave, Marc.”

It floored Marc to hear Eric say it. It _floored_ him, but it shouldn’t have because his brother had spent most of the previous season clenching his teeth at the míster during training and sitting tensely on the bench during matches.

The truth was, Marc had never played football without Eric. The truth was, being born twenty minutes apart never stopped them from stumbling on to a pitch at the same age. The truth was – “Joder, but you’re such a good player, Eric.”

Eric smiled, a little, and it hardly even looked sad. “Sure, bro. I’m good, for seventeen years old. But I’m not getting much better anymore, not like you.” Because Eric was a saint, he always managed to show nothing but happiness for Marc’s prospects. “The crazy thing about this place is that they make you get educated in a classroom too, not just on a training ground. I’ll go to university.”

Marc snorted. “As if we didn’t spend all our time in class dreaming of being back at training.” That was true, as a general rule, but it was also true that Eric had a way of lighting up in classes that most of the boys lacked. “University, huh? You could study to be a journalist.”

“You’re just saying that cause you know I’ll write nice things about you when I interview first team players down the line, aren’t you?”

And Marc smiled, because he hadn’t meant that at all; he could picture his brother reporting on politics or economics or business with equal skill. But Eric and him had always treated their dreams as communal things, and if it was all on him to fulfill them now, well. It wasn’t like he had planned on failing, anyway. He could play for Eric as much as he played for himself.

_Come on we gotta keep the light burning  
Come on we gotta keep the light burning  
Come on and dream baby dream_

Marc’s debut was thirty minutes of heaven because he was playing and thirty minutes of hell because they were _losing_ and thirty minutes of holding his breath even as he panted and ran and fought for his team with his entire body, and it was thirty minutes which meant that he was part of a long string of _defensors blaugranes_ , and it was thirty minutes that ended with a hug from Pep Guardiola and Marc thought, _Okay. Okay, I’m a part of this._

_Come on baby and dry your eyes  
Come on baby and dry your eyes  
Come on dream on, dream baby dream_

He felt his hamstring go out from under him even as Bale rounded him and streaked towards Pinto, sure and fearless like the world class winger that he was, and Marc could do nothing but watch.

Puyi found him afterward, in between dispensing hugs and back slaps to the whole team. The magic thing about Carles was that you could see him do the same thing for half a dozen other guys and still feel like it was special when he did it for you.

Carles placed his hand right over Marc’s heart, right over the crest on his uniform. He said, “Hey, kid, keep your head up and your eyes clear. I know how it feels to see a game slip away in front of your eyes, but keep your head up. You are a Barcelona defender, which means you are a warrior. It means you have the strength of the whole club behind you, and it means that you will get to fight again another day for this team.”

_Come on we gotta keep the fire burning  
Come on we gotta keep the fire burning  
Come on and dream baby dream_

Late in the summer of 2014 Marc returns to training with hope in his heart and fire in his legs and an empty ache about the fact that Puyi’s not here this time around. Maybe he didn’t play much last season, but the man had been captain since early in Marc’s time at La Masia, and he leaves a gap all the same. It’s hard to dwell on it, though, as Luis Enrique starts implementing two-a-days on top of ambitious tactical plans for the new season.

Most of Barcelona training is team based and possession based, but of course they take some time to run defensive drills too, after the warm-ups and rondos that are open to the press. Mostly Marc has gotten good at ignoring the droves of photographers and writers on the sidelines, but sometimes he’ll glance over and see if Eric has come to pester him today. Eric graduated over a year ago with a specialty in public health communications, but that didn’t stop him from getting ahold of a press pass and strutting in to training once in a while, running fake interviews with Geri and Sergi.

Today, though, it’s all business, and the defenders make a point of mixing up partnerships and groupings so everyone on the back line can get used to everyone else. Marc thinks that it doesn’t matter – this is his group, his team within the team, and they will all strive together to form Barça’s defense. Their efforts are collective, and so are their dreams, and Marc can’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Bartra did in fact begin playing in Espanyol’s youth set up, before switching to Barcelona when he was 11. I have no idea who his family supports, but I’m playing the odds for families in Catalunya and saying it was Barça  
> 2\. Eric Bartra is Marc’s real life twin brother. The two of them are quite close (just check their instagrams for evidence!) and Eric did play at Barça for some period of time. Everything else about him is made up, though  
> 3\. Bartra debuted in February 2010, in a 1-2 loss away to Atleti  
> 4\. The play with Bale refers to the 2014 Copa del Rey final, which Barça lost on a Gareth Bale goal. The play described is real, as if the fact that Bartra was injured before/during the action.  
> 5\. I don’t know why half of this ended up about Puyol but I’m not apologizing.


End file.
